Thread: 2009 draft Mike Trout

Did the twins even consider drafting Trout who was available when they chose first? I just saw the s i article about him

I couldn't find much out there but Mike Trout's dad was a former Twins minor league play so there was a small connection there. Kelly Theiser reported they were looking for pitching in the draft after drafting Hicks, Revere, and Parmalee in the previous drafts.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...tnerId=rss_min

In general I can't knock the Twins for the 2009 draft because they did go after Gibson and paid well above slot to sign him so they didn't cheap out. Also, 24 other teams passed on Trout so it wasn't just the Twins failing.

If I remember correctly, Gibson was a top 5 type prospect who fell due to his hairline fracture injury & MN was shocked he was available.
Cant fault on this one......if we drafted Trout tho, he sure would be tearing up the INT Lg right now leading ROC to the playoffs, wouldnt he??

A lot of teams passed on Trout. It happens. A lot of people passed on Berrios and he's tearing it up. Not that I'm comparing Trout to Berrios, just pointing out that sometimes guys fall through the cracks.

I thought I read somewhere that the Twins liked Trout, his dad had a connection to them, but they had Gibson and Storen (among others) ranked above him. Hindsight is 20/20 but can't blame the Twins.

Yeah, NTM if we would have passed on Gibson for "another toolsy OF" at the time, people would have went ballistic at the time!

I mean, sure it would have been nice to draft Trout, but it also would have been nice to draft Pujols in one of the first 13 rounds a decade or so ago as well

Angels had 24th/25th picks & took Trout 25th, so even they passed on him.
Id be more upset we took Matt Bashore 46th instead of Billy Hamilton 57th, Andy Oliver 58th, Nolan Arreando 58th or Jason Kipnis 63rd
Mn missed on all picks in rounds 2-5 that yr

Originally Posted by jharaldson

I couldn't find much out there but Mike Trout's dad was a former Twins minor league play so there was a small connection there.

Yeah Trout's dad, Jeff, was a Twins farm hand, but even that turned out to be worthless from the Twins standpoint. The scout who signed Trout was Greg Morhardt, who was Jeff Trout's former AA teammate and spring training roommate in their days playing in the Twins organization. Problem is, Morhardt was scouting for the Angels.

Originally Posted by greengoblinrulz

Angels had 24th/25th picks & took Trout 25th, so even they passed on him.
Id be more upset we took Matt Bashore 46th instead of Billy Hamilton 57th, Andy Oliver 58th, Nolan Arreando 58th or Jason Kipnis 63rd
Mn missed on all picks in rounds 2-5 that yr

But even with Bashore, he was a lefty who was throwing 97 mph a week before the draft... At the end of the day, sure, didn't work out, but I couldn't argue with it at the time.

Originally Posted by greengoblinrulz

Angels had 24th/25th picks & took Trout 25th, so even they passed on him.
Id be more upset we took Matt Bashore 46th instead of Billy Hamilton 57th, Andy Oliver 58th, Nolan Arreando 58th or Jason Kipnis 63rd
Mn missed on all picks in rounds 2-5 that yr

Bullock was turned into Diamond, so that was ok. Tootle and Bashore had arm injuries but I liked the risk.

Everyone seemed pretty excited about snagging Gibson at the time. If people want to get depressed about it and play the hindsight game, blame the Santana trade instead of the Gibson pick. Had the Twins let Santana walk instead of taking the Mets version of the Derek Jeter "I enjoyed screwing you" gift basket, the comp picks could have resulted in Trout, Tyler Skaggs and the Twins would have still had Gibson.

Given the opportunity to take Gibson, I have no issue with the decision they made knowing what they knew. It was a good choice. Sure would be handy to have Skaggs right now (a guy I kept saying they should trade for....).

There were a few reasons Trout dropped so far. First, he's from Millville, NJ, not exactly a prospect hotbed. Another thing that compounded that was that the Spring of 2009 in the northeast was exceptionally wet, which resulted in a number of rainouts. (In fact, I believe I read that there was no state tournament that year because of the amount of rain.) In addition to teams having trouble scouting him, he also had a fairly hefty price tag. So even the teams that believed in him couldn't give him a solid grade and for the rumored $3m that he wanted, he was a risk.

I didn't do nearly the draft research in 2009 that I do now, but I usually tried to learn about the guys the Twins might possibly target. I liked Trout, he fit the Twins mold, but I didn't feel they were a great match because of the asking price. Granted, he signed for slot (or near-slot) money, it was a moot point for me when Gibson was still on the board.

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Originally Posted by greengoblinrulz

Angels had 24th/25th picks & took Trout 25th, so even they passed on him.
Id be more upset we took Matt Bashore 46th instead of Billy Hamilton 57th, Andy Oliver 58th, Nolan Arreando 58th or Jason Kipnis 63rd
Mn missed on all picks in rounds 2-5 that yr

But even with Bashore, he was a lefty who was throwing 97 mph a week before the draft... At the end of the day, sure, didn't work out, but I couldn't argue with it at the time.

Bashore frustrates me since it was a mere weeks after drafting him that his elbow blew out....no way of knowing of course but we got absolutely NO time with him.
Think that MN balked at hard throwers in 10/11 draft after seeing him & Tootle blow out the arms so soon & Bullock never harnessing his control????

Originally Posted by nicksaviking

Everyone seemed pretty excited about snagging Gibson at the time. If people want to get depressed about it and play the hindsight game, blame the Santana trade instead of the Gibson pick. Had the Twins let Santana walk instead of taking the Mets version of the Derek Jeter "I enjoyed screwing you" gift basket, the comp picks could have resulted in Trout, Tyler Skaggs and the Twins would have still had Gibson.

This is the perfect reasoning to give people who didnt understand the draft pick value vs trading for prospect.
Didnt work so good for Hunter with Shooter/Guitierrez but I thought it was worth it then. 2 high prospcts.
Still hear media bitching about letting Kubel/Cuddy go for nothing & that we shoulda dealt em. Berrios is gonna be better than anything we coulda gotten for a mere rental of slightly above average players. Baird & Chargois remain to be seen, but those 3 are a very nice haul.
We got Harrison/Boyd for Crain/ODawg while still attempting to win in the playoffs.
Was a big proponent of draft picks vs dealing for prospects other teams didnt want

I didn't understand the need to cut Bashore this year though, he didn't require a 40-man roster spot and he was healthy enough to pitch. The Yankees picked him up and while he's not knocking on the MLB door, he looks to be pitching well enough that his recovery looks successfull.

Originally Posted by nicksaviking

I didn't understand the need to cut Bashore this year though, he didn't require a 40-man roster spot and he was healthy enough to pitch. The Yankees picked him up and while he's not knocking on the MLB door, he looks to be pitching well enough that his recovery looks successfull.

Posted Bashores numbers in another thread and he's in Low A for Yanks, but pitching very solidly (did get 5 early season gms out of pen in FSL). Had one very bad game in Low A (10er in 2.1IP) but other than that, his ERA is very low 2.07 in 46.2IP 41Ks (10gms all starts) . Back on the DL now. Still only 24
Didnt get the outright release either.

There's also a good chance that, had Trout been drafted by the Twins, he'd have been taught to hit "the Twins way" and not be anywhere near his current numbers. See Arias, David.

Originally Posted by ofx1

There's also a good chance that, had Trout been drafted by the Twins, he'd have been taught to hit "the Twins way" and not be anywhere near his current numbers. See Arias, David.

These have to be the dumbest subjects ever! You could say that if only we drafted this certain player look how great we would be now. The Twins had a serious need for pitching and drafted a great player, hopefully if everything goes as planned he will be a major leaguer next season.

I can't wait to see the next thread about a player drafted in the 8th round of the 2011 draft turning into a superstar and how if only the Twins would have not passed on him multiple times we would be set at that certain position. SO LAME.

Twins took Dan Berlind in 7th round (248th) in 2007 and Tampa took Matt Moore 2 picks later